A-Cat Europeans @Cercle Voile Bordeaux: Ashby Champ , Caviezel 1st Euro

All sailing images courtesy of Gordon Upton / British A-Class Assoc. No official sailing pics during the event were published. — Upton’s full gallery at
Great sailing event organized by Cercle Voile Bordeaux  and the French A-Class Association. Glenn Asbhy continued his domination raid once more. He is definitely untouchable.

Check Final racing report I wrote at a-cat.org/?q=node/436
Also read Csn reports in previous event posts.

Top 10 Gold Fleet Below.
– Final results at cerclevoilebordeaux.com/classeA/resultsA/resultat/classement-final.htm
– Final Report at IACA’s website A-cat.org/?q=node/436
– Official website cerclevoilebordeaux.com/classeA/home.htm
– Report by Arno at dnacat.blogspot.com/2014/06/flying-high.html
– Gordon Upton full gallery at IACA FB
– Paula Kopylowicz / Exploder galleries from the Racing week at facebook.com/exploder.info

Hervé Ledue won the Silver fleet on his Dna, and Tibo Laudren was second on the Askell floating mode. Hervé help the Arg crews with the registration process and all was set smoothless for us, a good work for the event coordinator.
Tibo got me lots of tips that helped me with my downwind legs, those tips payed a lot as I crossed him many times in the last races! Thanks Tibo!

I want to thanks again to Andy and Sandro for G6 charter boat. I really appreciate what they did, and not many do that. The G6 is a weapon upwind, get
a test against it and you will know what I’m talking about.
To complete the week Sandro won the European Crown, being 4th overall and first European sailor behind the 3 Aussies. More on their project next days.

Congrats also to PJ, Arno & Mischa for their continued development, another big event for the Dna with Ashby on board a Dna with their latest dagger foils. Design report by Mischa later.
All top riders but Sandro were using Exploder rudders, including Ahsby, by Jakub though. Matthias Dietz (7th) sailed a Nikita standard mode.

Jakub Kopylowicz has made a great work also filling the fleet with boats as Dna has been doing last 3 years. Steve, Jason, Landy, Scott , Barker and Jacek were racing the Exploders. The Arg sailors bought 5, and 3 were raced at Bordeaux. Mehl went foiling like the pros, check pics I took on the free day at catsailingnews.com/2014/06/europeans-2014-thursday-rest-day.html

I couldn´t make more material / interviews an else as I managed to get the Arg guys the  Exploders / Saarbergs/ Landys and the charter Dna. Taking care of the deliveries plus getting my Scheurer G6 plus the sailing and racing left not much for any other thing.

The Saarberg/Landys combos worked perfectly, with Ian & Mehl having top speed in the Silver fleet with the Exploders, and I felt a 6th gear upwind in the G6, that put me top 16 two times in 8-10knots  where response from your equipment is needed. Thanks to Piet Saarberg for the good service and good vibes.

It was nice to confirm in real life the good vibes I had when exchanging hundreds mails with many people I didn´t knew personally like Arno, Felix, Landy, Tibo, Dorian , Hervé, Jacek, Jakub and many others.

I just arrived home some hours ago and I have that feeling to sail the A again. They were 8 days of learning to sail & race in the Class. I slowly gain the grasp on the A and managed to have some good final races  (for a previous 1 day of A sailing here in BA and no racing whatsoever for us Argies).

We had the chance to race in 4-5 knots and +15-18knots.  Check previous reports in CSN & IACA’s web on the conditions each days and the Foiling/No Foiling performance.

The last day  we had perfect upwind trap and technical downwinds (they always are..) and I managed to score a 15 in the Silver fleet in the final race, lost 2 spots though in the reach by half a meter at the finish!
It was a nice feeling though  having the rhythm of the best guys in the Silver fleet.

Got a discretional penalty later (20 dpi) for not signing the return to shore for the first time, as I was late disassembling the Scheurer. Nice move by the Judges, to enforce fulfilling the championship rules/procedures.

We are all looking forward to next year we are confident to improve as we are going to have our first Arg regatta this summer.